On today’s show…VW’s diesel cheating may have started years before we suspected….one of our viewers spies an autonomous Chevrolet Bolt….and the most important point that everyone seems to miss regarding that Tesla fatality involving Autopilot. All that and more coming right up on Autoline Daily.

This is Autoline Daily the show for those of you who truly care about what’s going on in the automotive industry.

CHEATING LIKE IT’S 1999
Volkswagen is back in the news over its diesel cheating scandal and this thing is far from over. Now it’s being sued by New York, Maryland and Massachusetts, which claim that VW developed six generations of defeat devices starting in 1999. And the attorney general of New York accuses current CEO Matthias Mueller of being aware of this cheating as early as 2004. According to these lawsuits, it was Audi that came up with a way to reduce the clatter of a diesel by injecting more fuel into the engine at idle. But that drove up NOx emissions. So they also came up with software to detect when the engine was being tested for emissions. Bloomberg reports that VW says it is regrettable that the states are suing the company after they supported its settlement with the EPA, NHTSA and CARB. And Automotive News reports the company is setting aside an additional $2.4 billion in charges related to the scandal.

IS THE DIESEL DEAD?
So here’s our big question. Has VW killed the diesel in the American market? According to data from Ward’s Auto, diesel sales are down 20% through the first half of the year, not including medium duty trucks. And Jaguar, Land Rover, and Mazda are all worried because they’re committed to selling diesels in the US. BMW is delaying sales of diesels because they’re undergoing far more scrutiny from the EPA before they’re approved. But when you take out VW, Audi and Porsche, diesel sales are down 2% from where they were last year. In fact, they’re actually a little bit better because they’re still very popular with pickup truck buyers.

U.S. DIESEL SALES, JAN-JUNE, 2016

2015

2016

CHANGE

All Light Diesels

244,684

195,546

-20%

W/out VW, Audi, Porsche

200,036

195,503

-2%

Source: Ward’s Auto

TESLA EDITS ITS NAME
It looks like Tesla doesn’t want to be known as just a car company anymore. Earlier this week, it quietly dropped the word “Motors” from its domain name. It’s website is now www.tesla.com instead of www.teslamotors.com. The change makes sense, since the company is getting involved in more than just EVs. Tesla also builds storage batteries for homes and businesses and it’s looking to merge with SolarCity, a company that makes solar panels. CEO Elon Musk has hinted the company is working on a “master plan,” so it wouldn’t be surprising if this name change is a hint at where it’s going.

Still to come…there’s yet another scandal hitting the automotive industry only this time it involves the heavy truck makers.

ANOTHER AUTOMOTIVE SCANDAL
Sales of medium and heavy-duty trucks in North America took a big tumble last month. And news for the truck segment isn’t any better in Europe…but for completely different reasons. Bloomberg reports that Daimler, DAF, Volvo and CNH were fined more than $3 billion by the EU over fixing prices for the past 14 years. Volkswagen’s MAN avoided a penalty and its Scania brand is contesting the results. Regulators accuse the companies of conspiring to set truck prices as well as coordinating the timing and pricing of costs related to emissions. They say this affected 9 out of 10 trucks sold in Europe.

AUTONOMOUS BOLT SPIED ON THE ROAD
It looks like GM is starting to rack up the autonomous miles. Autoline viewer Seth Wilson shared these pictures with us on Twitter of an autonomous car roaming around San Francisco. While Seth had never seen anything like this before, a number of people chimed in that it’s the new Chevy Bolt. You may remember back in March that GM purchased self-driving startup Cruise Automation, and in May the companies started testing self-driving Bolts. And when you go on Cruise Automation’s website, the homepage image is exactly the same car in the photos Mr. Wilson shared with us. Also interesting is the name Cheetah on the back bumper. A quick online search reveals that it’s Cheetah Technologies, a company that develops broadband network solutions. If you see anything out there you think is interesting, let us know. You can always connect with us on social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Just do a search for Autoline.

AUTONOMY BENEFITS TOO BIG TO IGNORE
Tesla made it into the history books last month and for all the wrong reasons. It earned the dubious distinction of being the first automaker to record a fatality in a semi-autonomous car. One of its owners was killed when the car’s Autopilot system did not detect that a semi-truck was blocking the road. That set off a media frenzy on the dangers of autonomous technology. But here’s what the media missed.

That same day 100 other people were killed in traffic accidents in the United States. That’s the national average: 100 people killed every day. And 6,000 are hurt badly enough that they need to go to the hospital. But Tesla’s own data shows that the accident rate with its cars in Autopilot mode is half the rate of other cars. And fully autonomous cars could eliminate 80-90% of all accidents.

Back in 1986 when the Challenger space shuttle exploded killing all the astronauts on board, there was a similar amount of national hand-wringing about safety. A panel of experts that NASA brought together quickly concluded that cold temperatures on launch morning caused a gasket to fail which led to the disaster. Yet NASA shut the entire shuttle program down for nearly three years to do more studies.

I remember a television reporter at the time asking Chuck Yeager, the famous fighter ace and test pilot, what he thought NASA should do. Yeager said, “I think they should wait for a warm morning and shoot off the next one.” Three years later that’s basically what NASA ended up doing.

That’s the attitude we need in developing autonomous cars. Shoot off the next one. Because the benefits that autonomy offers is too big to ignore.

That’s how I see it and I welcome your feedback in the comments section. And with that we wrap up today’s report.
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20 Comments to “AD #1905 – VW Cheating May Go Back Further, Is The Diesel Dead?, Autonomous Chevy Bolt Spied On the Road”

John, yes autonomous cars CAN possibly lead to less traffic deaths, that’s not really the issue here.
the big issue is (IMHO) the RUSH to market, new technology rushed to the public is great with Apps, cell phones, tablets and appliances, but when it comes to Vehicles and their safety items…absolutely NOT!!
extensive testing of every possible scenario and the durability of it should be 100% before it’s released to the public.
(PS: I’ve worked in Automotive durability testing for 25 yrs)
Thank you
Rob

My thought is that Tesla was in a rush to be the first with self-driving technology and launched it without fully testing it, in essence using some of their owners as beta testers. All of the hoopla and boasting may have oversold the capabilities of the system somewhat, and owners may have overlooked or ignored the direction given by the company as to how to use it safely. The more “mature” car companies know from experience that you can’t count on the public to safely test your cars for you. That’s why they all have proving grounds with legions of test drivers and engineers putting vehicles through all types of testing so that they are ready for the real world when they are driven off the dealership lot. Tesla may learn a lesson here the hard way.

people are generally afraid of new technology, autonomy is no different.
The plane they ride on pretty much flies it’s self and they have no idea, the computer keeps them from sliding off the slippery road but they don’t give it a second thought, a robot welded the natural gas pipeline that runs beside their house but what ever.. as long as I have hot water and heat. All that stuff is in the background so no one notices.

Isn’t the real challenge going to be smart autonomous vehicles trying to anticipate the bone-headed driving of humans in a non-autonomous world? Sure, when 100% of the cars on the road are autonomous, we’re going to realize all those safety benefits. Until then, it’s going to be the Wild West.

John, I suspect most of your audience have technical backgrounds. They/we live in a world of facts, physics, and statistical calculations. As such, we cringe when you say “the benefits that autonomy offers is too big to ignore.” The benefits are theoretical at this time, and are subject to noise factors and other uncertainties. As such, I humbly suggest a slight revision – “the potential benefits…”

I think one of the big mistakes Tesla made was naming their semi autonomous system “autopilot”.Too many people will not understand the difference between a true autopilot system as opposed to a semi autonomous system.

Other than Tesla, most other automakers refer to all of their driver aids as “assists”. For Tesla to call their system “autopilot” and no reinforce with the customers that these item only assist the driver, not really control the car.
While the assists are certainly more advanced, they are not really much different than power assisted steering and brakes. They make the cars easier to drive, but the driver is still ultimately in control.

VW and cheating? VW has managed to damage the brand even greater than Audi 5000 customers did in the late 80′s when they had trouble with the brake and accelerator pedal.

#5. I thought you were correcting my English! I should have said “the benefits that autonomy offer are too big to ignore,” not “is too big to ignore.” But I would agree that “potential” should have been part of the sentence, too.

Autonomous cars will happen and this will all be forgotten. When the truck has a transponder and the car has one too, wrecks will not happen.
If they do it will be really some kind of bad road conditions. Also the cars of Autonomy will “Talk” to traffic signals, Motorcycles, bicycles and probably even people. The only semi Autonomous vehicle will be a motorcycle. They will be safer too! Imagine no more left turns in front of a motorcycle, because the cars didn’t see them.
Motorcycles will be allowed, because of fuel efficiency. If the Motorcycle decides to blast past a bunch of Auto-autos, they will simply get a ticket in the mail, as each car will
take his picture, record his speed and email it to the Police. Your car will do this because they all will. Safety First.

One hundred people killed each day in accidents and half that if autonomous says Tesla; But can anyone believe any thing Tesla reports? And when comparing the numbers of each on the roads every day, aren’t the accumulative percentages telling a different story? First put autonomous vehicles in quarries, city taxis and buses for a few years to see what happens, then allow cars travel in selective locations. This technology is happening faster than it can be properly evaluated.

Pioneers are the risk takers and suffer early casualties. But without them, we don’t advance. Use the lessons learned and move on.

One accident is not as important as having all accidents, fatal or not, used to learn how to do it right. Investigation, OK, but not just this one.

The pioneering efforts of Tesla and their customers are leading to better products. They shake up hide-bound manufacturers who often prefer ‘the same old ways’ or worse. Too often working against new technology like the decades long, anti-hybrid and EV efforts.

As of March this year, Google (probably the leader in autonomy research) has a fleet of vehicles testing on real world city streets with $150,000 worth of testing equipment in each and closing in on 2 Million miles driven. According to them, that simulates 75 years of real world driving. Members of the team won the DARPA award in 2005, so well over 10 years of testing. There are now 9 states that allow real world testing of autonomous vehicles. There is a list of limitations available online, and they say that by 2020 these will all be addressed and a viable autonomous vehicle will be available to the public.
Maybe Tesla has rushed the product to the streets, but not the industry as a whole. I agree with John’s view and autonomy is inevitable. I wonder how beneficial or feasible it would be if the individual developers would collaborate in the interest of public safety?

Google discloses all instances where the autonomous vehicles may have had issues and the driver took over. They call these instances “disengagements” and according to them, “The rate of this type of disengagement has dropped significantly from
785 miles per disengagement in the fourth quarter of 2014 to 5318 miles per disengagement in the fourth quarter of 2015.” They typically drive 30-40K autonomous miles per month or more. Interesting to browse if you want the data (click on my name for the link).

Re Autonomous Driving: 1. This will not work very well unless ALL vehicles sharing the road are equipped with the latest technology – an impossibility. 2. From my very direct experience over 50 years of driving, many of the very poorly designed roads on which we drive – especially in urban areas – would drive any computer crazy. They are just not logical, and redesigning them properly would take at least 30 years, if ever. 3. NO computer would be able to cope with some of the absolutely idiotic things which I have seen some drivers do over the years. I have lost count of the number of “phenomenal avoidances” I have had in my life – though I have never had a serious accident.

Chuck Yeager had it right. All we can do with autonomous cars is to fix the problems as they come up and keep going forward. We live in a society that has come to expect that 100% of our activities should be 100% safe for 100% of the population 100% of the time. That’s not the Real World. All we can really do is the best we know how to do and to keep moving forward. In a world peopled with behind-the-wheel texters, autonomy looks pretty good to me.

So VW and its executives gets to reap the benefits/profits of price fixing for 14 years, then snitch on all of the other co-conspirators to avoid a $1.2 billion euro fine. Pretty classy. Another fine example of VW’s business ethics.